134 BULLETIN 174, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



victims and then flies off to its nest with bill and mouth crammed 

 full of insects, principally large Diptera.'''' 



Behavior. — The sapsucker, a bird of wide distribution and in some 

 parts of its range the commonest woodpecker, has come to be re- 

 garded with disfavor by man, who accuses it of harming the trees 

 it drills to obtain its food. Man accuses the bird of weakening trees 

 by drawing away their life-blood and of killing many by girdling 

 them with multiple punctures, and he blames the bird for marring 

 the beauty of trunk and limb by pitting and scarring them. 



A study of the habits of the sapsucker shows that its work on 

 the trees varies with the season and, on the Atlantic coast, is spread 

 over a territory 3,000 miles long or more. During the migrations, 

 northward and southward, when the birds are scattered and on the 

 move, comparatively little harm is done. Here and there a limb 

 may be killed — either girdled or opened so that infection enters — 

 and rarely a tree may die, but the chief effect is an esthetic one, the 

 scarring of the bark with pits, notably in orchards where it is a 

 matter of common observation that most of the pitted trees are in 

 perfect health. On their breeding ground and in their winter quar- 

 ters, however, where the birds are concentrated and remain in on© 

 locality for a considerable time, the effect is more serious. In the 

 Southern States especially, the lumber industry suffers material 

 financial loss due to the fact that deep in the wood cut from trees 

 on which sapsuckers have worked extensively, when the trees were 

 small, the grain is distorted and made unsightly by the scars of the 

 wounds inflicted by the birds years before. 



From an exhaustive study of the economic status of the wood- 

 peckers by W. L. McAtee (1911), the salient points in reference to 

 the yellow-bellied sapsucker are quoted below : 



The results of sapsucker attacks on trees are so uniform and characteristic 

 as to be distinguished easily from the work of other woodpeckers. Sapsucker 

 holes are drilled clear through the bark and cambium and often into the wood. 

 They vary in outline from circular to squarish elliptical, in the latter case 

 usually having the longer diameter across the limb or trunk. Generally they 

 are arranged in rings or partial rings around the trunk, but they often fall 

 into vertical series. Deeply-cut holes arranged with such regularity are made 

 only by sapsuckers. 



After the original pattern of holes is completed, the sapsuckers often con- 

 tinue their work, taking out the bark between holes until sometimes large 

 areas are cleanly removed. This often occurs on small limbs or trimks, where 

 long strips of bark up and down the tree are removed, leaving narrow strings 

 between. This effect is also produced by continually enlarging single punctures 

 by excavating at the upper end, * * * which is done to secure fresh inner 

 bark and a constant supply of sap. Occasionally, after a tree has been check- 

 ered or grooved after the above-described systematic methods, it may be barked 

 indiscriminately, leaving only ragged patches of bark. * * * Even in such 

 cases, however, traces of the regularly arranged punctures are likely to remain, 



